Supporting Communities

We support educational, social, civic and arts organizations in our communities

Our businesses' community service programs align with their local communities’ needs. We rely on employee leadership and input to marshal financial and volunteer resources.

Local Community

Gulfstream sponsors The Building for Kids Children’s Museum in Appleton, Wisconsin. The Gulfstream Jet interactive exhibit allows children to experience flight as an air traffic controller, pilot and passenger. Approximately 115,000 children visit the museum annually.

NASSCO employees formed a volunteer Clean-up and Restoration Committee (CRC) in 2002 that continues today to help clean-up and restore public areas that directly impact the San Diego Bay and its tributaries. The CRC actively engages with the community through educational and outreach efforts and hosts four or more environmental events each year. For example, we support a project known as EarthLab, a hands-on outdoor science laboratory at Millennial Tech Middle School that allows children to learn about environmental sustainability. We also host an annual neighborhood clean-up day just outside the shipyard gates in Barrio Logan and Logan Heights, covering more than 30 neighborhood blocks.

Bath Iron Works partners with several programs in Maine to address problems of food insecurity. Employees conduct an annual Feed the Hungry food drive and collection, with proceeds supporting the Bath Area Food Bank and the Bath Area Kitchen Table. The programs provide meals and supplies to hundreds of individuals and families in need. Shipyard employees also work with the Good Shepherd Food Bank and the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program and support the Bath Area Backpack Program, which provides healthy meals to students during school vacations.

Mission Systems employees volunteer to support the Martha’s Table food drive as a way to give back and support their local community. Martha’s Table provides services to the Washington, D.C., community for quality education programs, healthy food choices and family support systems. The program provides emergency relief programs, daily mobile food trucks and meal and clothing services.

Many of our businesses work with Habitat for Humanity. Land Systems—Canada sponsors and partners with Habitat for Humanity Heartland Ontario for several days’ worth of home building. In 2017 alone, 50 employees volunteered vacation days to help build a house in the community. Our Mission Systems business employees in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, have partnered with the Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, Inc. for more than 20 years. The group has helped build 27 homes and is in the process of constructing six, zero-energy ready residences. General Dynamics’ corporate headquarters proudly supports Jill’s House, an organization that celebrates children with special needs and provides relief to the extraordinary families who love them through short-term, overnight respite care.

Educational Outreach

From leading Robotics clubs to supporting a Rocketry Challenge to music programs, we support and provide volunteers for education projects around the world.

Gulfstream supports the Savannah Music Festival’s Musical Explorers, a comprehensive education program that reaches nearly 11,000 kindergarten through second-grade students and more than 350 teachers in the Savannah, Georgia, area. The program was created in response to decreasing access to music education opportunities for students and teachers both inside and outside the classroom.

In Taunton, Massachusetts, our Mission Systems employees established a mentoring program in 2015 to introduce students to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) topics. In collaboration with the local high school, we bring students into our facility to demonstrate how products are designed, developed and tested as a way to inspire students towards an engineering education.

A group of volunteer Mission Systems engineers run the eCrew program in Arizona. In partnership with The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale and with the East Valley Boys & Girls Club (Gilbert), they are introducing middle school students to engineering through a 12-week curriculum with hands-on projects requiring students to build, test and redesign their ideas. The program averages between 30 and 40 children per year and culminates in a graduation ceremony.

FIRST Robotics aims to help young people pursue studies and careers in the field of science, technology and engineering. In 2017, Mission Systems—Canada sponsored and mentored two teams, one in Calgary and one in Ottawa.

Land Systems hosts STEM tours at its Sterling Heights, Michigan, location, showing hundreds of students how the company intersects science, technology, engineering and math into daily jobs. They also run a Women in Defense Scholarship program and sponsor several student-run robotics teams.

Electric Boat operates three apprenticeship programs: one for Quonset Point, one for the Marine Draftsman Association and one for the Metal Trades Council and Carpenter Union. The programs range from three to four years and are administered by the Department of Labor, Office of Apprenticeship Training, in collaboration with management, union representation and local community colleges. Successful completion results in a certificate and/or Associate’s degree, preparing the apprentice to be a well-rounded master trade worker, designer or technical expert or leader.

Jet Aviation has an apprenticeship program in cooperation with the Department of Education in the Canton of Basel, Switzerland, employing upholstery and polymechanic apprentices for three- and four-year terms. This program allows local youth to see first-hand numerous job options available to them.

Gulfstream’s Student Leadership Program (SLP) was established in Savannah in 2008 to encourage higher grades, lifelong learning and personal development for high school students. It is a collaborative partnership between Gulfstream, the public-school system and the business community. The program has since expanded to include Appleton, Wisconsin, and Brunswick, Georgia, and reaches nearly 1,000 students annually.